Published 4:00 am, Saturday, August 2, 1997

1997-08-02 04:00:00 PDT Monterey -- Crisp guitar riffs and a booming beat thunder through the hills around Laguna Seca Raceway as Peter Furler, leader of the Newsboys, runs toward the edge of the stage and leans out to a jumping, floating throng of ecstatic teenage rock fans.

Christian rock fans.

"God is not a secret," screams the 30- year-old Australian singer, drummer and songwriter. "God is not a secret to be kept!"

It's no secret -- gospel rock has hit the big time.

Thirty years after the Monterey Pop Festival made music history, some 10,000 lovers of Christian music are encamped in the dusty hills east of this seaside city for the three-day Spirit West Coast festival, which ends tonight.

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It's Woodstock resurrected for a new wave of Jesus freaks. There's pop, rock, grunge, rap, ska, hip-hop, country, traditional gospel, and nearly every style of music under the sun.

What ties the genre together are lyrics about Jesus, and rising record sales.

Once condemned as the devil's music, rock 'n' roll -- the Christian variety, anyway -- is now the fastest-growing segment of the mainstream music industry. Gospel rock CDs are going platinum -- that means a title selling 1 million CDs -- and they're topping the charts as major record companies gobble up obscure Christian labels.

"All of a sudden, Christian music is taking off," said Deborah Evans Price, who covers the industry for Billboard Magazine. "After years of songs with angst-ridden lyrics, I think the public wants a more positive message."

Last week, Christian pop singer Bob Carlisle's "Butterfly Kisses," featuring slick, sentimental songs about faith and fatherhood, was No. 1 on Billboard's list of the Top 20 albums, outselling even the Spice Girls.

Just down the list, at No. 7, was 27-year-old Dallas youth choir leader Kirk Franklin and his gospel/ hip-hop album "God's Property."

Other big-time gospel rock bands like DC Talk and Jars of Clay (a phrase taken from 2 Corinthians 4:7) have successfully crossed over into mainstream radio, MTV and such pillars of the rock establishment as Rolling Stone magazine.

Those two bands will be featured at evangelist Billy Graham's crusades October 10 at the Cow Palace and October 25 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, and are sure to bring crowds of Christian youth.

Jon Robberson, director of this weekend's Spirit festival in Monterey, said improved music quality and major label distribution have fueled the ascension of gospel rock.

"These Christian bands now have record budgets that are not much different than mainstream bands," said Robberson.

Bob Herdman, 31, who plays rhythm guitar for the Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline, started his group seven years ago at a Kentucky Bible college.

"Christian people have accepted this music for a long time," he said. "But the outside world is noticing it now."

Nevertheless, Herdman said some Christian concertgoers are unprepared for the rowdy mosh pits that sometimes break out -- stage-front areas where frenzied fans are "floated" around over the heads of the crowd.

"We've had broken bones, but I don't think that's un-Christian," Herdman said. "You also break bones if you go out and play football, and nobody sees anything wrong with that."

Casey Lee, 16, said the mosh pits of Laguna Seca are tame compared to ones he's seen at many secular concerts.

"There are not as many 'dirts' here," said Lee, referring to the unwashed fans at some concerts. "Those pits usually stink."

"And they don't have fights here," he added. "I kinda like to watch the fights."

Casey, who attends Lighthouse Christian Fellowship church in Pacifica, sat with three friends slumped over a picnic table on the edge of the concert area, seriously bummed because security guards told them they couldn't ride their skateboards on concert grounds.

"They're afraid we'll sue them or something," Casey moaned.

At a nearby tent pavilion, a multitude of Christian businesses and youth organizations had set up displays.

There were T-shirts ("Satan is Ugly as Sin"), bumper stickers ("Warning: In Case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned") and Christian candy ("Testamints -- Refreshing Mints with a Message").

James Samarin, 19, was at the Know Him clothing booth, filling out a raffle ticket and hoping to win a surfboard with the Know Him logo.

His favorite bands are the Supertones, scheduled to play this afternoon, Five Iron Frenzy and Slick Shoes.

Samarin, who attends Clovis Evangelical Free Church in Fresno, said the major record companies are about two years behind the curve in spotting hot Christian rock.

"They realize it's a big market," he said. "But they're not doing it to glorify God. They're just in it for the money."

One criticism of the new Christian acts is that they are unashamedly derivative -- they copy the latest sound and plug in Christian lyrics.

Nevertheless, Baker is one of many industry insiders who sees a big-time Christian pop/rock crossover into mainstream music.

"The boom in this industry is like what happened 10 or 15 years ago with Garth Brooks and country music," she said.

Occasional Gospel and Christian songs have surfaced as hits for years -- "Oh Happy Day" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, or the rock opera theme from "Jesus Christ Superstar," the tribute to the Jesus freaks of the late '60s and early '70s.

Other pop singers, from Aretha Franklin to Amy Grant, have started out with devotional material, only to evolve into the secular, sexy sounds of pop, soul and R&B.

Early Christian rock bands such as Stryper, the spandex-clad Heavy Metal rocker for Jesus, or Petra were more like novelty acts.

What separates the new gospel wave are the sheer number of bands, their solid fan base, and their growing presence in the music industry.

And festivals are a big part of the scene.

Spirit West Coast is the first major Christian rock concert in California, but it follows the pioneering efforts of the annual Creation festival in rural Pennsylvania, which draws 60,000 fans, and Jesus Northwest, which last year attracted 23,000 stomping teenagers to the Clark County Fairgrounds in Vancouver, Wash.